GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – The Greater Green Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau announced plans to enhance tourism and recruit talent to the region.
President and CEO Brad Toll says they are building a $6.5 million dollar state of the art facility to do it.
“This will be highly interactive. We will use social media and a lot of things to make it a very interactive, very engaging fun space.”
The Region of Greater Green Bay is a popular year-round destination with more than 5.7 million visitors and $671 million dollars spent during those visits each year. Toll said they needed to make a big change to take better advantage of that.
That change is a new home located at Interstate 41 and Lombardi Avenue west of Lambeau Field and Titletown.
“It is located right were visitors enter our community, and it is connected to an interstate. They will get to that first stoplight and we will be the first thing they see.”
The Experience Greater Green Bay Visitor Center is a two-story, 12,500 square-foot facility.
Toll says the move was necessary first because they were forced to move out of their existing home at the Brown County Arena, which is scheduled to be torn down.
Since 1969, the Greater Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau had been operating inside the Brown County Memorial Complex, but that will soon change.
Toll said that location offered issues.
“The facility is old. There is no Wi-Fi and the visitors did not have access to a bathroom.”
To date, Experience Greater Green Bay has commitments of $3.5 million dollars, including a lead gift of $1.5 million dollars from the Oneida Nation.
“The Oneida Nation of Wisconsin has a long and proud history of citizenship, collaboration, and contributions in Northeastern Wisconsin, extending all the way back to the early 1800s,” said Oneida Nation of Wisconsin Chairman Tehassi Hill. “We have more than 16,500 tribal members living in the region and are the third-largest employer in Brown County.”
Toll says the new facility will enhance the understanding of Greater Green Bay as a great place to live, work and play, by showcasing regional arts and culture, waterfronts, education and industry.
The Experience Greater Green Bay Visitor Center will feature community spaces and an atrium with interactive displays that highlight attractions in the Green Bay area.
Toll says they did a lot of research before coming up with their plan.
“We looked at St. Louis, Louisville, Seattle and many other CVB’s and we are taking the best of each, but we have our own ideas as well. What we are planning on putting together is not going to be your typical visitors center.”
Construction is planned to begin next spring and the center is scheduled to open in summer 2020.
